Guide to creating a Sustainability Strategy

1) Introduction
 

Why do I need a Sustainability Strategy?

A Sustainability Strategy sets out your priorities, where and how you are going to focus your resources, what success looks like, and helps you communicate to the people who matter to your business.

Importantly, it makes sure that your sustainability efforts are aligned to your business priorities and are part of everyone’s job.

Effectively done, the process of creating the Strategy, as well as the end result and its implementation, can help:

• Build buy-in

• Focus resources and investment

• Engage external stakeholders

• Drive business performance

Some organisations say they have a Strategy but in reality, it is a list of activities.  A good Strategy should be a living document, not something that sits in a folder, whether real or digital.

This guide will help you create a Sustainability Strategy for your organisation, whatever sector or size.

Who should be involved?
 

Responsibility for the Sustainability Strategy needs to sit at the very top of your organisation, owned and championed by your business leadership.

Dependent upon the size of your organisation you might have a dedicated Sustainability Manager or it might be part of someone’s role such as an Operations Manager. Can you create a small team of people passionate about sustainability and/or who will be involved in making it happen?

Regardless of where formal responsibility lies, involving people from around your business both internally and externally will generate better ideas and build understanding and buy in- essential to your success.

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2) 7 Step Sustainability Strategy Framework

1. Why are we in business?

2. What matters to our organisation and our stakeholders (Materiality)

3. Where are we today? (Baseline/ SWOT)

4. Where do we want to be (Vision & Goals)

5. How exactly do we get there? (Action Plan)

6. Promoting your intentions (Communications)

7. How are we doing? (Review and Reset)
 

2.1) Why are we in business?
 

The starting point for your Sustainability Strategy is going back to the core of why you are in business.

This makes sure that your Strategy can build on the organisation’s reason for being and its history, and that it becomes part of how you do business, creating value by contributing to business growth rather than a drain on resources. Key questions to ask:

• What role can responsible ways of doing business have in achieving our vision?

• How should our values influence our strategy?

2.2) What matters to our organisation and our stakeholders (Materiality)
 

An effective Sustainability Strategy needs to be relevant to your business. This means identifying and understanding what issues are significant for your business, its stakeholders and prioritising them for action.

Carrying out a materiality exercise can help you do that.

Figure 1: Seven step materiality assessment

1. Identify your key stakeholders
 

These are the groups of people who will help you deliver your Strategy or be impacted by it. For example:

• Internal: Employees, freelancers or agency staff, management teams, leadership etc

• External: Customers, clients, suppliers, local community, industry bodies, associations, trade unions, investors/shareholders, visitors, guests

2. Ask them to be involved

Before you send out the survey, get in touch to let them know what you are planning to do and ask them if they would be happy to be involved. You could use script like the following:

We are working on/updating our Sustainability Strategy as part of our aim to be a more sustainable business. As a key stakeholder for [INSERT YOUR ORGANISATION’S NAME] we’d love to hear your thoughts at this early stage. It involves filling out a quick survey which should take no more than 10 minutes of your time. If you are happy to be involved, please do let me know and as soon as the survey is finalised I’ll send you a link to complete it. Many thanks for your support.

3. Identify subject areas

You need to provide some parameters for your survey otherwise you could end up with a long list of issues which are irrelevant to your business or outside your area of influence.  A couple of ways to do this are:

• Take a look at existing frameworks such as:

  • UN Tourism for Sustainable Development Goals

Figure 2: UN Tourism for Sustainable Development Goals

• Centre for the Promotion of Imports from developing countries (CBI) and their eight elements of a sustainable tourism business

Figure 3: CBI eight elements of a sustainable tourism business

• West Midlands Sustainability Roadmap to 2030

Figure 4: West Midlands Sustainability Roadmap to 2030

• Look at what your competitors are doing as this can help identify issues that might be important to your sector or location

• Include areas that you already know are important to you, for example energy costs or attracting employees

• Consider external areas of legislation or best practice such as Anti-Slavery guidelines

4. Design your survey

For each priority ask your respondents to rate them on a scale of 1-5 or 1-10  as follows:

• What impact does this issue have on [insert the name of your business]?

• How important is this issue to you (the stakeholder)?

This gives you information that can be easily analysed and  explained visually. Leave space for respondents to add insights and comments to enhance the results.

Use software to help you create the survey, send it out and collect the data. There are some that are free or part of existing packages such as Survey Monkey, Google Forms, Microsoft Forms. This website provides a helpful list of options.

Not all stakeholders are desk based or have access to the internet, so you may wish to provide a paper survey that they can complete and submit. Those paper entries need to be entered into the software system you decide to use.

Decide when you want the results back and set a deadline.

5. Launch survey and collect data

For those stakeholders who have internet access, simply send them an email with a link to the survey. Don’t forget to remind them how important their input is and thank them for their willingness to take part.

For those completing the paper survey think about how best to get the survey to them and collect the response. Could you have them posted in a box or tray in the staff room, or give them out at team briefings?

Keep an eye on the responses and make a note a few days before the deadline to remind everyone to fill it in and send it back to you.

6. Analyse data

Plotting the results on a priority matrix is one of the simplest and most effective ways of identifying those issues that are the most important. Some of the software mentioned above will do this for you. You should end up with something like this:

Figure 5: Priority matrix

Once you understand what is most important to your business and stakeholders, you can go a step further to identify how far you are able to influence or control this issue.  For each issue, decide where it sits in the following circles.

Figure 6: Spheres of influence

You now have a list of the areas of most relevance and importance to your business and stakeholders, graded by the level of control you have.

7. Share results and feed into Strategy

Engagement with your stakeholders shouldn’t end after they complete the survey. Share the results with those who took part so that they can see the output of their input. This can be done through a formal report or a presentation at meetings.

Sharing your results more widely can act as a starting point for conversations with suppliers, employees, or partners about what you might be looking for from them as you go through the next steps of writing your Sustainability Strategy. Welcome feedback and any ideas that they might have.

As you will see with the next few steps, the findings from your materiality exercise will feed into and direct the creation of your overall Sustainability Strategy and accompanying Sustainability Communications Plan.

2.3) Where are we today? (Baseline/ SWOT)
 

“You can’t get to where you want to go, unless you start with where you are” Michael Hyatt

Start gathering information on the priority areas you have identified. For example:

• What are you using and spending?

  • For energy, water and waste, use utility bills and invoices from your suppliers or landlord.

  • For business travel, use expense claim forms or your travel booking account.

  • Develop or use a carbon calculator to understand the emissions association you’re your activities. You could develop your own spreadsheet or use freely available tools. If your operations are more complex you may need support from an expert consultant.

• What are you already doing?

  • Most businesses and organisations won’t be starting from scratch so make sure you capture what you are already doing. For example, do you:

    • Have recycling bins in place

    • Use electric vehicles

    • Prioritise public transport over cars

    • Use High Welfare Food

    • Source locally

    • Have partnerships with charities or support campaigns as part of your marketing activity

• What policies and procedures are already in place?

  • An important part of your Strategy will be publicly stated policies and procedures – what already exists that you can amend or update?

2.4) Where do we want to be (Vision and Goals)
 

“The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it”  Michelangelo

Change is hard. So you need something to inspire you and to keep everyone focused. This is where we introduce ‘Big Hairy Audacious Goals’ (BHAGs)!

Crafting a lofty yet realistic vision and set of goals is an exciting and challenging task. What will your company look like if you are truly sustainable? Some examples could be:

• Net zero by 2030

• Carbon neutral by 2027

• Sourcing 100% of our food from the UK

• Provide equal pay for everyone by 2028

Each BHAG then needs to be broken into smaller, measurable targets.

2.5) How exactly do we get there? (Action Plan)
 

Appoint a Sustainability Manager or team
 

It might be possible to appoint someone full or part time, or to start with it could be part of someone’s role.  As part of your action plan, they should receive proper training and support as well as be set clear objectives and KPIs.

Generate some ideas
 

Once everyone agrees on your vision and goals, draw on the expertise and experience within your organisational ecosystem. Talk about each category one-by-one and get the team to offer ideas. Write them all down. Run competitions, hold workshops, send out questionnaires, set up a Suggestions Box or Ideas Board in the staff room and integrate it into normal business activities such as meeting agendas.

Depending of the size of your business the obvious starting point is your wider management team and employees. If you don’t have employees, what about trusted agency staff or freelancers

Next your suppliers. Not only are they a source of data but you can ask them for ideas too.

And if it’s appropriate or possible, reach out to your customers. For business customers, think about how can you help them reach their own sustainability goals?

What are your competitors doing? And are there any interesting and relevant initiatives you’ve read or heard about through trade bodies or other industry channels?

There’s no such thing as a dumb idea. Map it all out then expand on the great ideas to turn them into actions.

Build your plan
 

Using your existing business plan template, build out a detailed action plan making sure it includes who is responsible, any deadlines, budget, and how you are going to measure success. The following tables provides an example Action Plan:

Priority Area	Objective	Targets	Actions	Timeline	Responsibility	Budget	KPIs
Energy	Net Zero by 2030	Reduce energy use in line with commitment to achieve NZ by 2030	Conduct a full energy review to identify areas of focus	Apr-Jun 2023	Facilities Manager
			Switch to renewable energy – on site and through suppliers	Suppliers by mid 2023 On site 2025	Facilities Manager
			Switch Off staff training & communications campaign	Launch Jan 2023	Marketing & HR Manager

2.6) Promoting your intentions (Communications)
 

It’s important to communicate your sustainability story, regardless of how far along the journey you are. Some of the benefits are:

• Raising awareness that you are a sustainable business 

• Letting your employees know what is expected of them 

• Making it easier to attract and retain high quality employees 

• Building customer loyalty 

• Creating opportunities to sell more to existing customers or encourage them to stay longer 

• Encouraging customers to change their behaviour to help you meet your targets 

• Attracting new customers 

• Attracting investment 

• Supercharging your reputation 

For a full guide to how to create a Sustainability Communications Plan click [here]

2.7) How are we doing? (Review and Reset)
 

Formal reporting
 

A formal reporting process is essential to track progress, see what is working and where any adjustments need to be made.

Ideally reporting on your Sustainability Strategy should be incorporated into your existing reporting processes and timetable.

Consider including external reviews such as sustainability experts, awards and becoming an accredited sustainable business.

Get accredited
 

Being certified as a sustainable business sends out a strong, positive message. The Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC) is the international accreditation body for sustainable tourism certification.